execute

name	execute
description	Activated when an implementation plan exists. Executes plan tasks in dependency order (independent, non-same-file tasks may run in parallel batches) with enforced review gates, adversarial validation, and resumable session state.
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zuvo:execute

You are the execution orchestrator. You take an approved implementation plan and drive it to completion, task by task, with automated quality enforcement at every step.

Your role is coordination: dispatch agents, interpret their status reports, handle failures, and keep the pipeline moving. You do not write code yourself.

---

Environment Compatibility

Read ../../shared/includes/env-compat.md for agent dispatch patterns, path resolution, and progress tracking across Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor.

Execution Modes

🔒 CODEX HARD OVERRIDE — SINGLE-AGENT ONLY (read this FIRST, it wins over everything below). You are running on Codex. This harness has NO event-driven sub-agent wake — only wait_agent polling — and a 28-session forensics run (2026-07-15..17) measured what thread dispatch does here: ~88h of 30s busy-polls, 19.5h/10h/8h orchestrator dead-air ended only by a human typing "kontynuuj", sub-agents idle 78-92% of their lifetime, 747M-token context re-feeds. Therefore, on Codex:

• Every DISPATCH <role> agent / "dispatch per environment" / "re-dispatch the implementer" instruction in this document means: perform that role YOURSELF, inline, as a sequential checkpoint pass (same gates, same output format, same iteration caps).
• Spawning agent threads or calling wait_agent for ANY pipeline stage is FORBIDDEN.
• The "Parallel dispatch" batch rule does NOT apply — tasks run sequentially.
• If any sentence below appears to permit multi-agent on Codex, it is a build-transform artifact — THIS block wins. Print [MODE] single-agent (codex hard rule) once at run start.

Detect the environment per env-compat.md:

Multi-agent mode (Claude Code ONLY — that harness wakes the parent by EVENT when a sub-agent finishes; no other harness has event wake): Dispatch implementer, spec-reviewer, and quality-reviewer as separate agents. This is the preferred mode described in the execution loop below.

Fallback rule (MANDATORY): If agent dispatch is unavailable, disallowed by the current runtime, or fails twice for the same stage:

• Print: [MODE SWITCH] Falling back to single-agent. All checkpoints remain mandatory.
• Record the fallback reason in task telemetry and the final summary (dispatch-unavailable, dispatch-disallowed, agent-failure, or same-model-fallback).
• Continue only with the single-agent checkpoint protocol below. Never silently drop spec review, quality review, adversarial review, or session-state updates.

Anti-"ceremony" clause (HARD — closes the substance-vs-ceremony rationalization). Rate-limits / 137 OOM kills / environment instability justify the single-agent fallback and NOTHING MORE. They do NOT justify skipping the gates. Framing the run as "I did the substance (TDD code), skipped the heavy ceremony (sub-agent reviewers, per-task adversarial, retro/runlog) because it was infeasible this session" is a protocol violation, not a degraded-but-valid run. Specifically:

• Spec review + quality review are not "sub-agent ceremony" — under single-agent they become the sequential passes below (steps 3–4). They are cheaper (no dispatch), not optional.
• Per-task adversarial is mandatory in BOTH modes (see Step 7b + the [GATE: adversarial-done] requirement). "~600s × N is too slow under rate-limits" does not authorize skipping it; if truly time-boxed, run it and record the result — never commit a task without the gate marker.
• Retro + runlog have ZERO dispatch dependency — they are local bash that costs seconds. "Infeasible in this session" is categorically false for them. A run that committed code but skipped retro/runlog is INCOMPLETE, not degraded.

There is no "ceremony tier" that instability lets you drop. If you cannot run a gate, the task is BLOCKED_MISSING_GATE (Step 7c), not "committed without the gate." Print the explicit [MODE SWITCH] line and keep every checkpoint.

Single-agent mode (Cursor, or any runtime where multi-agent dispatch is unavailable): Execute all roles yourself in sequential passes with explicit checkpoints:

1. Pre-write contracts: For complex tasks, fill the code contract (from code-contract.md) before writing production code, and the test contract (from test-contract.md) before writing tests. Print: [CHECKPOINT: contracts complete, starting implementation]
2. Implementer pass: Write the code following the task spec and contracts. Run verification. Print: [CHECKPOINT: implementation complete, switching to spec review]
3. Spec reviewer pass: Re-read the task spec and the code you just wrote. Compare independently. Do NOT trust your implementation pass — review as if seeing the code for the first time. Print findings and: [GATE: spec-compliance] <3 plan requirements satisfied, or BLOCKED with exact gap>
4. Quality reviewer pass: Run CQ1-CQ29 on production files, Q1-Q19 on test files. Run anti-tautology checks on test files. Report per-file scores — aggregate scoring is forbidden. Print scores and: [GATE: cq-critical] <critical gates checked + evidence>
5. Independent test auditor pass: Re-read tests as if seeing them for the first time. Compare Q scores with self-eval. Print: [CHECKPOINT: independent test audit complete]
6. Adversarial pass: Run the same adversarial review required in Step 7b. Print: [GATE: adversarial-done] PASS|WARNING|CRITICAL|BLOCKED <mode + artifact path or exact blocker>
7. Acceptance verifier pass (MANDATORY): Read the task's Acceptance Proof block from the plan. Set up preconditions, run the proof, capture artifact to zuvo/proofs/task-<N>-<ac-id>.<ext>. Behavior must match Expected. Print: [CHECKPOINT: switching to acceptance-verifier role] then [GATE: acceptance-verified] <ac-ids passed | BLOCKED with failing AC# + observed-vs-expected>
8. Commit (only if all reviews and acceptance gates pass)
9. Session durability pass: Rewrite execution-state.md immediately after the commit. Print: [GATE: state-written] <task N, sha7, next-task>

The checkpoint markers and gate markers ensure role separation even within a single agent context. Missing any [GATE: ...] marker — including [GATE: acceptance-verified] — is a contract violation and the task remains IN_PROGRESS.

Mandatory File Loading

Phase 0 — Bootstrap (load before any work)

CORE FILES LOADED:
  1. ../../shared/includes/env-compat.md                  -- READ/MISSING
  2. ../../shared/includes/codesift-setup.md              -- OPTIONAL/READ IF AVAILABLE
  3. ../../shared/includes/quality-gates.md               -- READ/MISSING
  4. ../../shared/includes/verification-protocol.md       -- READ/MISSING
  5. ../../shared/includes/tdd-protocol.md                -- READ/MISSING
  6. ../../shared/includes/session-state.md               -- READ/MISSING
  7. ../../shared/includes/no-pause-protocol.md           -- READ/MISSING (HARD: no mid-loop pauses)
  8. ../../shared/includes/acceptance-proof-protocol.md   -- READ/MISSING (HARD: per-task + smoke proof gates)
  9. ../../shared/includes/stall-recovery.md              -- READ/MISSING (self-arming watchdog: resume on API-error/rate-limit stall)
 10. ../../shared/includes/code-contract.md               -- DEFERRED (task dispatch)
 11. ../../shared/includes/test-contract.md               -- DEFERRED (task dispatch)
 12. ../../shared/includes/knowledge-prime.md             -- DEFERRED (task dispatch)
 13. ../../shared/includes/knowledge-curate.md            -- DEFERRED (completion)
 14. ../../shared/includes/run-logger.md                  -- DEFERRED (completion)
 15. ../../shared/includes/retrospective.md               -- DEFERRED (completion)
 16. ../../shared/includes/documentation-mandate.md       -- DEFERRED (completion)

If 1-2 files missing: Proceed in degraded mode. Note which files are unavailable in the final summary. If 3+ files missing: Stop. The plugin installation is incomplete.

Phase 0.1 — Retro checkpoint marker (run this bash at bootstrap)

Write a run-marker so an abandoned/context-out execute run is captured at the next zuvo skill start, and sweep any prior orphans. Ungated — never blocks execute. (On clean Phase Final, append-runlog clears this marker.)

# >>> zuvo:retro-marker  (plan Task 7 — passive checkpoint capture)
_RS=$(command -v retro-stub 2>/dev/null || ls ~/.claude/plugins/cache/zuvo-marketplace/zuvo/*/scripts/zuvo-home/retro-stub 2>/dev/null | head -1)
_ZH="${ZUVO_HOME:-$HOME/.zuvo}"
_RSK="${SKILL:-execute}"
_RPR="${PROJECT:-$(basename "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)")}"
_RSHA=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD 2>/dev/null || echo "-")
# Sweep PRIOR orphans FIRST — before writing this run's marker — so this
# run's fresh marker is never swept as its own orphan.
[ -n "$_RS" ] && "$_RS" --sweep >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
if mkdir -p "$_ZH/run-markers" 2>/dev/null; then
  { printf 'start_ts=%s\nskill=%s\nproject=%s\nsha7=%s\nbranch=%s\nsession_id=%s\nrepo_root=%s\n' \
      "$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)" "$_RSK" "$_RPR" "$_RSHA" \
      "$(git branch --show-current 2>/dev/null || echo -)" "${ZUVO_SESSION_ID:-$_RSHA}" \
      "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)" \
      > "$_ZH/run-markers/$_RSK-$_RPR-$_RSHA-$$-$(date +%s).marker"; } 2>/dev/null || true
fi
# <<< zuvo:retro-marker

Phase 0.2 — Arm the stall-recovery watchdog

Follow the ARM section of ../../shared/includes/stall-recovery.md. In short: seed zuvo/context/execute.heartbeat (status: running, resume: zuvo:execute), and if the CronCreate tool is available, arm a */3 * * * * recurring/non-durable cron whose prompt runs zuvo-watchdog-check and re-invokes zuvo:execute on a RESUME verdict — so a turn that dies on an API error / rate-limit / socket closed auto-resumes from execution-state.md within ~3 minutes instead of freezing. Idempotent: skip arming if CronList already shows this run's [zuvo-watchdog skill=execute project=…] tag (the watchdog-triggered resume re-enters this phase). If CronCreate is absent (Codex/Cursor) print the /loop 3m zuvo:execute fallback line and continue. Never block execute on watchdog setup — a missing helper or scheduler only disables auto-resume, it does not stop the run.

---

Session Recovery Check

Before locating the plan, run the READ protocol from session-state.md:

Read("zuvo/context/execution-state.md")

• status: in-progress found → resume mode: skip completed tasks, restore retry counts, load project-context. Jump directly to the Execution Loop at next-task. Skip "Hard Gate: Plan Required", "Artifact Detection", "Stack Detection", and "CodeSift Integration" — all of that is already in zuvo/context/project-context.md. Retro carry: inherit retro-session-id from the ## Retro State block unchanged (do NOT regenerate) per session-state.md — this resumed run owns that prior retro, so one run yields exactly one eventual retro (a full retro supersedes any earlier checkpoint stub via retro-stub idempotency).
• status: completed or status: aborted → follow the rename/archive behavior from session-state.md, then proceed normally.
• File missing → proceed normally.

---

Hard Gate: Plan Required

Before anything else, locate the plan document.

Step 0: Check for active plan pointer

Read("zuvo/plans/active-plan.md")

If the file exists and status: pending or status: in-progress:

• Use the plan: field as the plan path. Skip the Glob search.
• If the plan file doesn't exist at that path: fall through to Glob.

Otherwise: proceed with Glob below.

Step 1: Find the plan

Glob("docs/specs/*-plan.md")

• If exactly one match: use it.
• If multiple matches: present the list to the user and ask which plan to execute.
• If no matches: stop. Tell the user no plan was found and redirect to zuvo:plan.

Step 2: Parse the plan

Read the plan document. Extract the task list. Each task has:

• Task number and name
• Files to create/modify/test
• Complexity (standard or complex)
• Dependencies (tasks that must complete first)
• RED/GREEN/Verify/Commit steps

If the plan document is missing any of these fields for a task, ask the user to clarify before starting execution.

Verify the plan status:

• If the plan header does NOT include status: Approved, stop with BLOCKED_PLAN_NOT_APPROVED.
• Print: "Plan is not approved. Review and set status to Approved before running execute." Return { status: "BLOCKED_PLAN_NOT_APPROVED", next: "approve plan" }.

---

Artifact Detection

Check which artifacts already exist from prior pipeline phases:

1. Glob("docs/specs/*-spec.md") — the spec this plan was built from
2. Glob("docs/specs/*-plan.md") — the plan being executed
3. Check memory/backlog.md — existing tech debt relevant to touched files

Read the spec alongside the plan. Spec reviewers will need it to verify compliance.

---

Stack Detection

Before dispatching any agent, detect the project stack:

1. Check project AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md for a declared tech stack
2. If absent, check config files (tsconfig.json, package.json, pyproject.toml, composer.json, etc.)
3. Load the matching rules file path for the implementer: rules/typescript.md, rules/react-nextjs.md, rules/nestjs.md, rules/python.md

Record the detected stack. Pass it to every implementer dispatch.

---

Session State Initialization

Before the first agent dispatch, initialize session state using the WRITE protocol from session-state.md:

1. Write zuvo/plans/active-plan.md — set status: in-progress.
2. Write zuvo/context/execution-state.md — status: in-progress, completed: [], next-task: <lowest task number from the plan>.
3. Write zuvo/context/project-context.md — stack, test-runner, codesift-repo.
4. Ensure zuvo/ is in .gitignore (add if missing).

---

CodeSift Integration

CodeSift is optional during execute. Execute uses Read/Grep/Bash as the default file-operation path and does NOT depend on a startup repo scan.

Before the first agent dispatch:

1. Detect whether CodeSift tools are available in the current environment
2. Record CODESIFT_AVAILABLE=true|false
3. If available: pass the repo identifier when you already have it, otherwise let CodeSift auto-resolve from CWD
4. If unavailable: do not warn repeatedly. Note it once in telemetry and continue

Use CodeSift only when it adds concrete value during execute:

• resolving NEEDS_CONTEXT requests (search_text, find_references, trace_call_chain)
• blast-radius checks after constructor/signature changes
• index_file(path) after each edited file when available

Do NOT require list_repos() or a search_symbols() spot-check before the task can finish.

---

Knowledge Prime

Before the first agent dispatch, run the knowledge prime protocol from knowledge-prime.md:

WORK_TYPE = "implementation"
WORK_KEYWORDS = <3-5 keywords extracted from the plan title and task names>
WORK_FILES = <all files listed across all tasks in the plan>

This loads project-specific patterns, gotchas, and decisions accumulated from prior sessions. Pass any MUST FOLLOW and GOTCHA entries to every implementer dispatch as an additional context block.

---

Required Telemetry

For every task, emit a compact telemetry block after verification and include mode shifts again in the final summary.

Minimum fields:

• task: number and name
• surface: from plan task header (backend-logic / api / db / db-data / ui / integration / config / docs)
• mode: multi-agent or single-agent
• fallback-path: none, dispatch-unavailable, dispatch-disallowed, agent-failure, or same-model-fallback
• writer-model: actual implementer model/lane used for the task
• reviewer-route: review-primary, review-alt, same-model-fallback, or routing-failed
• implementer-status: DONE, DONE_WITH_CONCERNS, NEEDS_CONTEXT, or BLOCKED
• spec-review: COMPLIANT or ISSUES FOUND
• quality-review: PASS or FAIL — with per-file scores; aggregate forbidden (e.g. cq=27/[e-mail],28/[e-mail]; q=18/[e-mail],17/[e-mail] not cq=27/29 q=18/19 aggregate)
• adversarial: verdict plus mode (code, security, migrate)
• verify: command(s) and exit code(s) — implementation-detail check
• acceptance-verified: list of AC ids passed plus artifact paths (e.g. AC1@zuvo/proofs/task-4-AC1.txt,AC3@zuvo/proofs/task-4-AC3.txt) — behavior check
• codesift: available, unavailable, or index-failed
• backlog-adds: integer count for this task

Per-file scoring is mandatory. A telemetry block reporting q_gates: 19/19 aggregate is rejected by the completion gate. Aggregate averaging hides per-file zeros — the documented proximate cause of the 2026-04-22 codec session shipping with Q7=0 and Q11=0 in specific files while telemetry reported all-green.

Example:

[TELEMETRY]
task=4 "Tenant extension hardening"
surface=api
mode=single-agent
fallback-path=agent-failure
writer-model=sonnet
reviewer-route=same-model-fallback
implementer-status=DONE
spec-review=COMPLIANT
quality-review=PASS cq=27/[e-mail],28/[e-mail] q=18/[e-mail]
adversarial=PASS mode=security
verify="pnpm vitest run src/foo.spec.ts" exit=0
acceptance-verified=AC2@zuvo/proofs/task-4-AC2.txt,AC5@zuvo/proofs/task-4-AC5.txt
codesift=available
backlog-adds=1

---

Pre-loop guards (run once before the first task)

• Worktree / shared-tree pre-flight — RESOLVE repo_root, don't bail to single-agent. Run git worktree list. Determine the ONE tree this plan targets (the worktree checked out on the plan's branch:, else the current checkout), set repo_root to its absolute path, and store it in project-context.md so every sub-agent dispatch (Step 2) and the resume path get the same root. Sub-agents then cd $repo_root + use absolute paths, so multi-agent runs correctly even when the session CWD is the main checkout and the work lives in a worktree — you do NOT need a worktree-rooted session and you do NOT drop to single-agent for this. STOP (ask the user) ONLY on genuine ambiguity: the plan's branch is checked out in two worktrees, or in none (can't locate the tree). Otherwise resolve and proceed. (Pairs with zuvo:worktree.)
• Baseline test snapshot. Run the suite ONCE at session start and record which tests are already red (baseline-failures: [...] in execution-state.md). Per-task verification then compares against this baseline — a test that was red before your change is a pre-existing failure to backlog, NOT a regression to re-investigate every task.
• Per-task verification is TARGETED, full suite runs ONCE at Phase Final. (HARD — measured sink.) A task's Verify step runs the tests/type-check for the TOUCHED package/files (turbo run test --filter=<pkg>, the package's own script, or the specific test files) — NEVER the whole monorepo suite. The FULL suite + build runs exactly twice per plan: the baseline snapshot above and once at Phase Final (smoke). The 2026-07-17 timing forensics measured execute/plan sessions re-running the full turbo-test suite on EVERY task and every plan revision — pure multiplication of a fixed cost by N tasks with near-zero added signal (the baseline already isolates pre-existing reds). A reviewer or fix-loop iteration re-verifies with the SAME targeted scope, not an escalated one.
• No parallel same-file tasks. If you ever batch task dispatch, never run two tasks that touch the SAME production file concurrently (lost-edit hazard) — the plan's rule 13 should already have serialized them; if it did not, serialize here.
• DB integration tasks. For a task that changes schema, generate the migration via migrate diff / hand-written SQL applied with psql against a clean DB — NEVER migrate dev against a drifted local DB (it silently rewrites history / drops data). Verify the migration applies forward AND the rollback is present.

SCOPE-FREEZE (HARD — the plan you approved is the plan that ships)

Work discovered MID-EXECUTION that the plan does not contain — an adjacent API, an extra fixture system, a tempting refactor, a "while we're here" migration — is NEVER appended to the running plan. The 2026-07-17 post-mortem measured a plan growing 32→37 tasks in flight, dragging in an API layer, Playwright, DB fixtures, live preview and reducer refactors: scope creep turned one feature into a 37-hour, 127-file branch. Rules:

1. The task list is FROZEN at plan approval. New work → memory/backlog.md (with a one-line reason) or a NEW plan/PR after this one lands. No new task numbers mid-run, ever.
2. A discovered BLOCKER that genuinely prevents a planned task (missing migration, broken contract) is handled as that task's fix-scope — the minimal unblocking change, recorded in telemetry — not as a new feature task.
3. If ≥2 tasks turn out to be un-implementable as planned (the plan's model of the code was wrong), STOP; the honest move is re-planning the remainder as a fresh plan, not improvising a bigger one.

Execution Loop

Process tasks in dependency order. If task B depends on task A (directly or transitively), do not start B until A is marked completed.

Parallel dispatch — when it is allowed (the definitive rule): two or more tasks MAY be dispatched as ONE concurrent batch iff they are (1) mutually independent in the plan's dependency graph — neither depends on the other, directly or transitively — AND (2) touch no production file in common (lost-edit hazard; see Pre-loop guard "No parallel same-file tasks" + the plan's rule 13). If either condition fails, serialize them. A task that depends on an unfinished task is never in the batch; same-file tasks run one at a time even when otherwise independent. Each task in a parallel batch still runs the full per-task cycle (implementer → spec → quality → adversarial → acceptance → commit) and writes its own execution-state.md update. To find what's parallelizable for the remaining tasks: read the plan's dependency edges, group the ready (all-deps-completed) tasks, then drop any that share a production file with another in the group — what's left is the safe concurrent batch.

HARD CONTINUATION RULE (per no-pause-protocol.md): After Step 9b (telemetry) of task N, IMMEDIATELY start task N+1. Do NOT estimate remaining wall-clock time, do NOT extrapolate session capacity, do NOT present A/B/C menus, do NOT ask "want me to continue?". The plan was approved at the entry gate — that approval covers ALL tasks. Only legitimate stops: BLOCKED_* states, all tasks terminal, or an explicit user "stop"/"pause"/"wystarczy".

Context pressure is NOT a stop on Claude Code. execution-state.md is rewritten after EVERY task (Step 9b), so it is a durable per-task checkpoint that survives compaction. On an auto-compacting runtime (Claude Code), do NOT halt at /context >85% — keep running tasks; the runtime summarizes and carries you into the next context window mid-run, and you resume from execution-state.md automatically in the SAME /zuvo:execute invocation (see "Resume after mid-run compaction" below). Emit the [CONTINUATION CHECKPOINT] + exit ONLY as a fallback on a runtime that hard-stops at the context limit with no auto-compaction. Stopping a 31-task plan after task 2 and making the user re-run /zuvo:execute is the friction this rule removes.

Resume after mid-run compaction (no user action needed). If your context was just summarized mid-plan and you are unsure where you are: Read("zuvo/context/execution-state.md"), take next-task, and CONTINUE the loop from there — do NOT stop to ask, do NOT re-request approval (the plan was already approved). The PreCompact snapshot + the state file are designed for exactly this seamless continuation.

Non-terminal stop — emit a checkpoint retro stub (do NOT skip). This applies only when you DO stop before Phase Final: an explicit user "pause"/"stop", or the FALLBACK context-limit exit on a non-auto-compacting runtime (NOT the Claude Code default, where you keep running through compaction). After writing execution-state.md run this ungated bash so the partial run's telemetry is captured immediately (more precise than waiting for the next skill's --sweep):

# >>> zuvo:retro-stop  (plan Task 7 — explicit checkpoint on non-terminal stop)
_RS=$(command -v retro-stub 2>/dev/null || ls ~/.claude/plugins/cache/zuvo-marketplace/zuvo/*/scripts/zuvo-home/retro-stub 2>/dev/null | head -1)
_RPR="${PROJECT:-$(basename "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)")}"
# CONTEXT_OUT for context-pressure; PARTIAL for an explicit user pause/stop.
_RST="${ZUVO_STOP_STATUS:-CONTEXT_OUT}"
# Explicit status->friction map (no brittle tr|sed substring rewriting).
case "$_RST" in
  CONTEXT_OUT) _RFR=context-out ;;
  PARTIAL)     _RFR=partial-recovery ;;
  *)           _RST=ABANDONED; _RFR=abandoned ;;   # unknown -> safe default
esac
[ -n "$_RS" ] && "$_RS" --status="$_RST" --friction="$_RFR" \
  --skill="${SKILL:-execute}" --project="$_RPR" --tool-calls="${ZUVO_TOOLCALLS:-0}" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
# <<< zuvo:retro-stop

Watchdog on a deliberate stop: if this stop is an explicit user "pause"/"stop" (_RST=PARTIAL), mark the heartbeat halted so the stall watchdog does NOT auto-resume a run the user chose to stop (per stall-recovery.md). Leave it running for CONTEXT_OUT/ABANDONED — those SHOULD resume.

# >>> zuvo:stall-watchdog (halt on deliberate user stop)
_HB="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)/.zuvo/context/execute.heartbeat"
if [ "${ZUVO_STOP_STATUS:-}" = "PARTIAL" ] && [ -f "$_HB" ]; then
  sed -i.bak 's/^status:.*/status: halted/' "$_HB" 2>/dev/null && rm -f "$_HB.bak" || true
fi
# <<< zuvo:stall-watchdog

Then, if a watchdog cron was armed (Claude Code), CronDelete the id recorded in the heartbeat's cron_id: line (belt: CronList → delete any job whose prompt contains [zuvo-watchdog skill=execute project=…]).

The run-marker (Phase 0.1) is the belt-and-suspenders fallback if even this is skipped; the next skill's --sweep will still capture the orphan.

Per-Task Cycle

For each task in the plan:

1. MARK task as in_progress
2. DISPATCH implementer agent
3. HANDLE implementer status
4. DISPATCH spec reviewer agent (textual compliance with plan)
5. HANDLE spec reviewer verdict
6. DISPATCH quality reviewer agent (per-file CQ/Q scoring — no aggregate)
7. HANDLE quality reviewer verdict
7b. DISPATCH adversarial reviewer (every task)
7c. ENFORCE self-review gates and branch-drift check
7d. RUN ACCEPTANCE PROOF (behavior check — the gate the codec session was missing)
8. COMMIT (orchestrator commits, not implementer)
9. WRITE session state immediately
9b. MARK task as completed + emit telemetry (per-file scores + acceptance-verified)
10. UPDATE project context + optional CodeSift index

Detailed steps follow.

---

Step 1: Mark In-Progress

Print to the user:

--- Task N/M: [Task Name] ---
Status: IN_PROGRESS
Complexity: [standard|complex]
Files: [list from plan]

Step 2: Dispatch Implementer

Dispatch per environment:

• Claude Code: use the Task tool.

• Codex: SINGLE-AGENT sequential checkpoint pass — do NOT spawn agent threads (no event wake: measured 13h of wait_agent polls + 19.5h dead-air per session; see env-compat.md Codex section).

Model routing (set by the plan author in task metadata):

• **Complexity:** standard (1-3 files, clear spec) -> Sonnet
• **Complexity:** complex (4+ files, architecture decisions, design patterns) -> Opus

User model override (--model in $ARGUMENTS) — beats the per-complexity default. The default above quietly sends standard tasks to Sonnet (and reviewers/verifier to Sonnet) for cost/speed. If the user wants the real work done by a specific model, honor it for EVERY dispatched sub-agent (implementer, spec-reviewer, quality-reviewer, acceptance-verifier, and any batch sub-agent):

• --model opus → all sub-agents run Opus (no silent downgrade to Sonnet/Haiku on standard tasks). Use when the user wants top quality and accepts the cost.
• --model sonnet / --model haiku → force that model everywhere (explicit cheap mode).
• --model inherit → all sub-agents inherit the orchestrator's (session) model — so an Opus session drives Opus sub-agents end-to-end.
• No flag → the per-complexity default above. But STATE the resolved per-role models up front ([MODELS] implementer=sonnet(std)/opus(cplx) · reviewers=sonnet · override=none) so the model choice is never a silent surprise — the user sees it and can re-run with --model opus if they disagree.

The cross-model ADVERSARIAL pass (Step 7b: codex/gemini/cursor) is independent of this and always runs regardless of the sub-agent model — so forcing Opus on the in-house agents does NOT cost you review diversity.

Provide to the agent:

• The absolute working root (repo_root) and this hard instruction: "Operate ONLY under <repo_root>. cd <repo_root> before every Bash command; use absolute paths (under <repo_root>) for every Read/Edit/Write. Do not touch files outside it." This is what makes multi-agent path-safe regardless of the orchestrator's CWD — a dispatched sub-agent inherits the session CWD, so without this it would edit the wrong tree when the plan targets a worktree the session isn't rooted in. repo_root is resolved once at the worktree pre-flight (below) and stored in project-context.md; pass it verbatim. Worktree is NOT a reason to drop to single-agent — pass repo_root and stay multi-agent.
• The full task spec from the plan (RED/GREEN/Verify/Commit steps)
• The content of rules/cq-patterns.md
• The content of the detected stack rules file
• CODESIFT_AVAILABLE and repo identifier
• The spec document path (for reference)
• Context from any previously completed tasks that this task depends on
• For complex tasks: instruct the agent to fill the pre-write code contract (from shared/includes/code-contract.md) before writing production code, and the pre-write test contract (from shared/includes/test-contract.md) before writing tests. The contracts must be printed as output for the quality reviewer to verify.

Step 3: Handle Implementer Status

The implementer reports one of four statuses:

TDD hard gate before any review: A DONE or DONE_WITH_CONCERNS report is only valid if it includes:

• RED evidence: failing command + failing assertion/exit code, or RED: N/A with a task-specific justification for truly non-behavioral work
• GREEN evidence: passing verification command(s) with exit code(s)

If RED evidence is missing or hand-wavy, stop with BLOCKED_TDD_PROTOCOL. Do not continue to spec review.

DONE

Proceed to spec review (step 4).

DONE_WITH_CONCERNS

Read the concerns list. Classify each concern:

• Correctness concern (wrong behavior, missing edge case, broken contract): treat as BLOCKED. Do not proceed to review. Present the concern to the user with the implementer's analysis.
• Style/preference concern (naming, structure, alternative approach): note the concern. Proceed to review. Persist to backlog after task completion.
• Scope concern (discovered adjacent work needed): note the concern. Proceed to review. Add to backlog as a follow-up task.

NEEDS_CONTEXT

The implementer needs information to proceed. Read what is requested.

Attempt to resolve without user involvement:

1. Search the codebase for the requested information (use CodeSift if available, Grep/Read otherwise)
2. Check the spec document and plan document
3. Check previously completed task outputs

If you can resolve: re-dispatch the implementer with the additional context. This counts as 1 NEEDS_CONTEXT attempt.

If you cannot resolve: present the question to the user. Wait for their answer. Re-dispatch with the answer.

Limit: Maximum 2 NEEDS_CONTEXT re-dispatches per task. After 2, escalate to the user: "The implementer has asked for context twice and still cannot proceed. Here is what was asked and what was provided. How should we handle this?"

BLOCKED

The implementer cannot proceed due to a hard blocker (missing dependency, broken environment, ambiguous spec).

Present to the user immediately. Never silently skip or auto-resolve a BLOCKED task.

Provide three options:

1. Provide context — "I can provide the missing information: [user types it]"
2. Skip this task — "Skip and continue with the next task. This task will be marked SKIPPED."
3. Abort pipeline — "Stop execution entirely. Completed tasks are preserved."

If the user picks option 1, re-dispatch the implementer with the provided context. If the user picks option 2, mark the task as SKIPPED and note it in the final report. If the user picks option 3, proceed directly to the final summary.

Async mode (Codex App, Cursor — no AskUserQuestion):

• Set task to BLOCKED
• Propagate BLOCKED_BY_DEPENDENCY to dependent tasks (per Dependency State Contract)
• Continue executing any PENDING tasks that are NOT blocked by this dependency
• Include all BLOCKED tasks with their blockers in the final summary
• Do NOT wait inline — the pipeline continues on independent branches
• Print: [AUTO-DECISION]: Task N blocked. Continuing with independent tasks. Review BLOCKED tasks in the final summary.

Step 4: Dispatch Spec Reviewer

Dispatch per environment:

• Claude Code: use the Task tool.

• Codex: perform this review yourself as a sequential checkpoint pass (thread dispatch forbidden — see env-compat.md).

Agent: Spec Reviewer
  model: "sonnet"   # unless the user passed --model (opus/inherit/…) — then use that, per Model routing
  type: "general-purpose"  # read-only: Read + CodeSift only, no Edit/Write (Explore lacks mcp__codesift__*)
  instructions: read agents/spec-reviewer.md
  input: task spec from plan, spec document, list of files implementer created/modified,
         CODESIFT_AVAILABLE, repo identifier

The spec reviewer reads the actual code independently. It does NOT receive the implementer's status report. Its job is to verify compliance with the plan, not to validate the implementer's self-assessment.

Step 5: Handle Spec Reviewer Verdict

COMPLIANT

Proceed to quality review (step 6).

ISSUES FOUND

Read the issue list. Each issue has a file:line reference and a description of the gap.

Re-dispatch the implementer with the spec reviewer's findings. The implementer fixes the issues. Then re-dispatch the spec reviewer.

Limit: Maximum 3 spec review iterations per task. After 3 iterations with unresolved issues, do NOT pause to ask the user fix / accept / abort. Apply the Post-Cap Autonomous Disposition from no-pause-protocol.md:

• Reviewer objectively right + determinate fix (maps to an explicit plan/AC requirement) → apply ONE final implementer pass conforming the contract, verify tests/tsc/build, continue. Record [POST-CAP: FIXED].
• Spec itself wrong / contradicts the codebase → amend the plan task's contract, record [POST-CAP: SPEC-AMENDED], continue.
• Genuine irreversible product call → safest reversible default + backlog, record [POST-CAP: DEFERRED], continue (BLOCK only the one item if every path is destructive).

The agent decides and continues — it does not wake the user. Every [POST-CAP: ...] line goes into the Final Summary for morning review. A spec-vs-code contract gap is case (a) or (b), never a reason to halt overnight.

Step 6: Dispatch Quality Reviewer

Dispatch per environment:

• Claude Code: use the Task tool.

• Codex: perform this review yourself as a sequential checkpoint pass (thread dispatch forbidden — see env-compat.md).

Agent: Quality Reviewer
  model: "sonnet"   # unless the user passed --model (opus/inherit/…) — then use that, per Model routing
  type: "general-purpose"  # read-only: Read + CodeSift only, no Edit/Write (Explore lacks mcp__codesift__*)
  instructions: read agents/quality-reviewer.md
  input: list of production files modified, list of test files modified,
         CODESIFT_AVAILABLE, repo identifier, content of shared/includes/quality-gates.md

The quality reviewer applies CQ1-CQ29 on production code and Q1-Q19 on test code from the provided quality-gates.md. It also checks file size limits. For complex tasks, it verifies the test contract was filled correctly (all branches listed, no implementation-derived expected values, all mutations have catching tests).

Step 7: Handle Quality Reviewer Verdict

PASS

Proceed to adversarial review (step 7b).

FAIL

Read the failure details. Each failure has a gate ID, file:line reference, and what needs fixing.

Pre-existing vs diff-introduced (only the latter blocks). A critical-gate-0 failure (CQ critical gate, a red test) blocks this task ONLY if THIS task's diff introduced it. Cross-check the cited file:line against the staged diff and the session baseline-failures: if the failure pre-existed your change (it is in the baseline / outside the diff hunks), do NOT block the task on it — backlog it as pre-existing tech debt and proceed. Blocking every task on the repo's pre-existing redness stalls the whole plan for debt this task did not create.

Re-dispatch the implementer with the quality reviewer's findings. The implementer fixes the issues. Then re-dispatch the quality reviewer.

Limit: Maximum 3 quality review iterations per task. After 3 iterations with unresolved failures, do NOT pause to ask the user. Apply the Post-Cap Autonomous Disposition from no-pause-protocol.md: a CQ/Q gate failure with a determinate fix → apply it and continue ([POST-CAP: FIXED]); a gate that is a genuine false-positive for this code shape → log the rule-mismatch to backlog and continue ([POST-CAP: DEFERRED] with the gate ID + why it is a false positive); a real design disagreement → backlog both positions, take the safest default, continue. Surface every [POST-CAP: ...] in the Final Summary. The pipeline keeps moving; the user reviews dispositions in the morning, not mid-run.

Step 7b: Adversarial Review (MANDATORY — do NOT skip, every task)

After quality review passes, run cross-model adversarial review. This runs for ALL tasks regardless of complexity.

git add -u && git diff --staged | adversarial-review --mode code --artifact "zuvo/context/adversarial-task-<task-N>.txt"

Mode selection:

• default task -> --mode code
• auth / tenant / payment / crypto / PII -> --mode security
• migrations / schema / DDL -> --mode migrate

If adversarial-review is not in PATH: ~/.claude/plugins/cache/zuvo-marketplace/zuvo/*/scripts/adversarial-review.sh

The captured artifact path is mandatory for commit gating. Use the current task number in the filename:

• Task 1 -> zuvo/context/adversarial-task-1.txt
• Task 9 -> zuvo/context/adversarial-task-9.txt

Diff-scope guard (filter findings to changed paths). The pipe at the command above scopes the input to the staged diff, but a reviewer/harness can still emit findings on files outside it. Before applying verdict rules, capture the changed-file set and validate every finding's path against it:

git diff --staged --name-only > zuvo/context/task-<task-N>-scope.txt

For each finding, confirm its file path appears in that scope list. A CRITICAL/WARNING finding targeting a file NOT in the staged diff is a backlog candidate (persist via backlog-protocol.md), NOT a task blocker — only findings intersecting the staged diff gate the commit. This prevents whole-repo scans from misattributing pre-existing findings to the task's diff.

Wait for complete output. Then:

• Binary unavailable / no verdict produced → BLOCKED_ADVERSARIAL_UNAVAILABLE. Do not commit.
• Plan-accepted risk → if a CRITICAL maps to a risk the plan EXPLICITLY accepts (match the plan's ## Review Trail entries and any per-task > **Accepted risk note** block), do NOT auto-fix AND do NOT pause to ask — the plan already made this decision at the approved entry gate. Confirm-accept-as-planned automatically: record [POST-CAP: DEFERRED] adversarial CRITICAL <X> — accepted per plan Review Trail in the Final Summary, proceed. (Per no-pause-protocol.md: re-litigating a plan-accepted risk mid-run is the waste; the user reviews the disposition in the Final Summary.) Only if the CRITICAL is a NEW risk the plan did NOT anticipate does it route to the normal CRITICAL fix path below.
• CRITICAL → re-dispatch implementer to fix, re-run quality reviewer, then re-run adversarial on the updated staged diff.
• WARNING (< 10 lines, localized) → re-dispatch implementer to fix, re-run quality reviewer, then re-run adversarial.
• WARNING (large/cross-file) or INFO → proceed only if logged as known concerns (max 3, one line each) and persisted to backlog.

Re-run ECONOMY (HARD caps — the loop multiplier measured 2026-07-18: ~10 full 4-min adversarial invocations for ONE task). Per task: at most 2 FULL-diff runs + 1 DELTA run, total. After a fix, re-run on the DELTA since the last artifact (git diff <last-reviewed-staged>..HEAD equivalent — the 2.2KB fix diff, not the whole task again). If the wrapper's 30k cap omitted files, run ONE supplement on the omitted set — never per-file supplement chains. When the cap is exhausted: triage remaining findings by EVIDENCE (base-code comparison) without another run — a finding refuted once with base-code proof becomes KNOWN: record it in the FACTS block of any later invocation and NEVER re-triage it (the field run re-litigated the same legacy-RS-403 semantics three times because each fresh provider pass re-discovered it).

Retry limit (distinct vs. relooped). Track a finding fingerprint (file|rule-id|signature, same scheme as Backlog Persistence) for each CRITICAL across iterations:

• Each iteration surfaces a NEW distinct CRITICAL fingerprint (progressive hardening) → allow continued iteration up to a ceiling of 6. A blunt 3-cap would ship a real bug when several distinct CRITICALs are legitimately found in sequence.
• The SAME CRITICAL fingerprint reappears after a fix attempt (relooped, not converging) → hard-stop at 3 with BLOCKED_ADVERSARIAL_LOOP and surface the exact findings to the user.

(adversarial-loop.md STOPs on a new distinct CRITICAL in its own validation-rerun; execute deliberately diverges here because it owns the full per-task fix loop, not a single validation pass.)

Step 7c: Self-Review Gate + Branch Drift Check

Before committing, verify the task still satisfies the required gate order:

• multi-agent mode: implementer DONE* -> spec review COMPLIANT -> quality review PASS -> adversarial verdict recorded
• single-agent mode: [GATE: spec-compliance], [GATE: cq-critical], and [GATE: adversarial-done] must all be present

If any gate marker or verdict is missing: stop with BLOCKED_MISSING_GATE.

Then compare branches:

git branch --show-current

If the current branch differs from branch: in zuvo/context/execution-state.md:

• stop with BLOCKED_BRANCH_MISMATCH
• print both branch names
• require an explicit user/runtime decision before committing on the new branch

If the branch change was intentional, update branch: during Step 9 and note it in task telemetry.

Step 7d: Acceptance Proof (MANDATORY — the behavior gate)

Spec-review checks textual compliance with plan (did you implement what the plan said). Quality-review checks code health gates (CQ/Q). Adversarial review checks diff text for hazards. None of those check that behavior matches Acceptance Criteria when the code is actually exercised. This step does.

Read ../../shared/includes/acceptance-proof-protocol.md for the surface taxonomy and proof shapes if not already loaded.

For the current task:

1. Read the task's Acceptance Proof: block from the plan. It lists one or more AC ids, each with Surface, Proof, Expected, Artifact fields.

2. For each AC in the block:

   • Set up preconditions (fixtures, env vars, seeded data) listed in the proof block.
   • Run the proof procedure exactly as written:
     • backend-logic / api / integration / config — execute the shell command or HTTP call. Capture stdout/stderr + exit code to Artifact: path.
     • db / db-data — run migration / sample query, capture schema dump or query results to artifact.
     • ui — drive Playwright or chrome-devtools MCP through the interaction script. Save screenshot + DOM snapshot to artifact.
     • docs — run linter / link checker, capture report.
   • Compare actual output against Expected: field.
   • If actual matches Expected → mark AC#x VERIFIED. If not → AC#x BROKEN with one-line observed-vs-expected.

3. Independence requirement. In multi-agent mode, dispatch a separate Acceptance Verifier agent (Sonnet, Explore type) given ONLY the task spec, the proof block, and access to run the proof. The verifier must NOT receive the implementer's status report. In single-agent mode, print [CHECKPOINT: switching to acceptance-verifier role] and treat the proof execution as a separate pass that does not trust implementation claims.

4. LLM-judge fallback for UI subjective dimensions. If the AC includes a subjective visual quality the proof cannot deterministically assert (e.g., "chip renders with affordance suggesting atomic edit"), after capturing the screenshot dispatch a Sonnet judge with (AC text, screenshot path, DOM snapshot) and require a binary VERIFIED / BROKEN token plus a one-sentence justification. Default to deterministic — only invoke judge when AC truly demands subjective measurement.

5. Verdict:

   • All ACs VERIFIED → emit [GATE: acceptance-verified] <ac-ids> artifact=<paths> and proceed to Step 8.
   • Any AC BROKEN → re-dispatch the implementer with the BROKEN list and observed-vs-expected detail. Re-run from Step 4 (spec review) on the next iteration. Maximum 3 acceptance iterations per task. After 3 unresolved iterations, mark BLOCKED with BLOCKED_ACCEPTANCE_PROOF_FAILURE and surface to user.
   • Proof cannot run (missing precondition, broken environment) → BLOCKED with BLOCKED_PROOF_PRECONDITION_FAILED. Do not commit the task — fixing preconditions is the next action.

6. Artifact retention. Every successful proof writes to zuvo/proofs/task-<N>-<ac-id>.<ext>. The path is recorded in telemetry's acceptance-verified field for retro and audit. Failed proofs write to the same path with a .failed suffix and are kept for the implementer's re-dispatch context.

No [GATE: acceptance-verified] marker = task remains IN_PROGRESS, no commit allowed.

Step 8: Commit

Only after spec review (COMPLIANT), quality review (PASS), and adversarial review (NO ISSUES or non-critical only), the orchestrator creates the commit:

1. Stage only the files listed in the task's "Files" field: git add <file1> <file2> ...
2. Never use git add -A or git add .
3. Verify zuvo/context/adversarial-task-<task-N>.txt exists, is non-empty, and covers the task's SUBSTANTIVE diff. Freshness is SEMANTIC, not mtime (HARD — the 2026-07-18 field run lost 40+ min to this): a post-adversarial edit invalidates the artifact ONLY if it changes production logic. Lint/format/whitespace fixes, comment edits, test-only/snapshot changes, and renames do NOT invalidate it — committing them under the existing artifact is correct, not a gate bypass
4. Commit with the message from the task's Commit step
5. The implementer does NOT commit — it only writes files and runs verification

Step 9: Write Session State Immediately

MANDATORY: Rewrite zuvo/context/execution-state.md immediately after each successful commit using the WRITE protocol from session-state.md.

This is the only resumable artifact. If context is compacted, lost, or the session crashes, execution-state.md is the source of truth. Failure to rewrite it is a blocking bug. Treat it exactly like a failed test.

Refresh the watchdog heartbeat at the same time (its mtime is the "last action" clock that keeps the stall watchdog seeing the run as ALIVE — per stall-recovery.md):

# >>> zuvo:stall-watchdog (heartbeat after each task)
_HB="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)/.zuvo/context/execute.heartbeat"
[ -d "$(dirname "$_HB")" ] && printf 'status: running\nskill: execute\nresume: zuvo:execute\ncron_id: %s\nnote: task %s/%s done\n' \
  "$(sed -n 's/^cron_id:[[:space:]]*//p' "$_HB" 2>/dev/null | head -1)" "$N" "$M" > "$_HB" 2>/dev/null || true
# <<< zuvo:stall-watchdog

Also append this task to ## Completed Work Units in zuvo/context/project-context.md. If the branch changed intentionally for this task, update the stored branch: value at the same time.

Step 9b: Mark Completed + Emit Telemetry

Print to the user:

--- Task N/M: [Task Name] ---
Status: COMPLETED
Files changed: [list]
Mode: [multi-agent|single-agent] (fallback: [none|reason])
Spec review: COMPLIANT (iteration [N])
Quality review: PASS (CQ: [score]/29, Q: [score]/19)
Adversarial review: [PASS / N findings (N critical) / BLOCKED]
Verify: [command -> exit code]

Then print the task telemetry block from Required Telemetry.

Step 10: Update Project Context + Optional CodeSift Reindex

If CodeSift is available, call index_file(path) for each created or modified file after the task commit. This is maintenance, not a release gate.

If CodeSift is unavailable or reindex fails:

• record codesift=unavailable or codesift=index-failed in telemetry
• continue without warning spam

Do NOT run a search_symbols() spot-check as a completion gate.

---

Dependency State Contract

Each task has one of these states:

State	Meaning
PENDING	Not yet started
IN_PROGRESS	Currently being executed
COMPLETED	All review gates passed, committed
SKIPPED	User chose to skip (via BLOCKED options)
BLOCKED	Hard blocker, awaiting user decision
BLOCKED_BY_DEPENDENCY	A prerequisite task is BLOCKED
SKIPPED_BY_DEPENDENCY	A prerequisite task is SKIPPED

Propagation rules:

• When a task transitions to BLOCKED, all dependent tasks transition to BLOCKED_BY_DEPENDENCY.
• When a task transitions to SKIPPED, all dependent tasks transition to SKIPPED_BY_DEPENDENCY.
• A BLOCKED_BY_DEPENDENCY task cannot be started without explicit user override.
• If the user provides an override ("proceed despite missing dependency"), the task transitions back to PENDING and can be dispatched.
• In the final summary, BLOCKED_BY_DEPENDENCY tasks are listed separately from BLOCKED tasks.

---

Agent Crash Recovery

If an agent dispatch fails (timeout, error, unexpected output):

1. Retry once with the same inputs
2. If it fails again and single-agent mode is allowed in the current runtime: print the mandatory [MODE SWITCH] notice, record fallback-path=agent-failure, and continue in single-agent mode for the current task
3. If it fails again and single-agent mode cannot satisfy the required gates: mark the task as BLOCKED with reason "Agent failure after retry"
4. Present to the user with the standard 3 options (context, skip, abort)

Do not retry more than once. Two failures on the same dispatch indicate a systemic issue.

---

After All Tasks Complete

Phase Final: Whole-feature Smoke Proofs (MANDATORY before COMPLETED)

Per-task acceptance proofs verify each task's slice in isolation. They cannot detect structural bugs that span multiple tasks — e.g., the 2026-04-22 codec session where R-1 (validate Set dedup) and R-2 (data loss in stripRedundantVoidCloses) crossed three different tasks (encode, strip, decode) and only manifested when the full encode → transform → decode round-trip ran. Per-task gates passed; structural bug remained.

Phase Final closes that gap.

1. Read the plan's ## Whole-feature Smoke Proofs section. It lists one or more SMOKE-id entries, each with Preconditions, Proof, Expected, Artifact.

2. If the section says "Not applicable" with a justification (e.g., internal subsystem with no end-user flow), accept it and skip to Session State Close. Note smoke=skipped reason=<text> in final telemetry.

3. Otherwise, for each SMOKE proof:

   • Set up the preconditions (typically heavier than per-task: full fixture set, seeded DB, dev server, sample input file).
   • Run the proof end-to-end. This is not a task-level test — it exercises the entire user flow described in the spec.
   • Capture artifact to zuvo/proofs/smoke-<flow-name>.<ext>.
   • Compare against Expected invariants.
   • VERIFIED → next smoke. BROKEN → enter recovery loop (step 4).

4. Smoke failure recovery. A failed Whole-feature Smoke means tasks individually passed but the feature does not work end-to-end. Do NOT mark the plan COMPLETED. Instead:

   • Identify which AC the failing smoke maps to and which tasks claimed to satisfy that AC.
   • Re-dispatch the implementer for the most likely affected task with the smoke's observed-vs-expected output as failure context.
   • Re-run the affected task's Step 4 (spec review) onward.
   • After the task re-passes per-task gates, re-run the failed smoke.
   • Maximum 3 smoke iterations per failed SMOKE id. After 3, BLOCKED with BLOCKED_WHOLE_FEATURE_SMOKE_FAILURE and surface to user with the full observed-vs-expected report.

5. Verdict:

   • All SMOKE proofs VERIFIED (or "Not applicable" justified) → emit [GATE: smoke-verified] <smoke-ids> artifact=<paths> and proceed to Session State Close.
   • Any unresolved BROKEN after 3 iterations → plan does NOT transition to COMPLETED. Final summary lists the failing smoke with its observed-vs-expected.

The plan cannot transition to status: completed without [GATE: smoke-verified] or an explicit "Not applicable" with a recorded justification.

Phase Final-2: End-of-Plan Aggregate Review (MANDATORY — every plan)

Per-task gates (Step 4 spec / Step 6 quality / Step 7b adversarial) review ONE task in isolation — 1–3 files, fresh-from-implementer context. They cannot see cross-task drift, integration bugs between tasks, or cumulative design decay across the 10–20+ tasks a brainstorm → plan → execute pipeline produces. Phase Final (smoke proofs) catches end-to-end behavioral breakage; this phase catches end-to-end code quality breakage.

Rationale: prior practice was to either (a) skip post-execute review entirely or (b) require the user to manually invoke /zuvo:review after merge. Both leak findings into main. The 2026-05-28 retro on progress-v2 (16 commits, all per-task adversarials green) had /zuvo:review TIER 3 surface 4 RECOMMENDED + 2 NIT integration-view findings that per-task gates structurally could not see. Making this phase mandatory closes that gap.

Skip condition: If the user invoked execute with --skip-final-review in $ARGUMENTS, skip this phase and emit [GATE: aggregate-review] SKIPPED (--skip-final-review) in telemetry. Reserved for genuine hotfix/cherry-pick cases. Do NOT skip on size, "looks small", or "per-task adversarials were thorough" — those are not valid reasons.

1. Derive the plan range (worktree-safe — bind git to the worktree's repo, not CWD).

   # repo_root was resolved in the pre-loop worktree pre-flight. If unset, resolve now —
   # NEVER let a CWD that reset to the main checkout pick the wrong tree.
   repo_root="${repo_root:-$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)}"
   # Plan base = parent of the first commit of this execute session.
   # Prefer execution-state's recorded base SHA if present; else merge-base with default branch.
   BASE_SHA=$(awk '/^plan_base_sha:/ {print $2; exit}' zuvo/context/execution-state.md 2>/dev/null)
   if [ -z "$BASE_SHA" ]; then
     DEFAULT_BRANCH=$(git -C "$repo_root" symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD 2>/dev/null | sed 's|refs/remotes/origin/||')
     DEFAULT_BRANCH=${DEFAULT_BRANCH:-main}
     BASE_SHA=$(git -C "$repo_root" merge-base HEAD "$DEFAULT_BRANCH")
   fi
   HEAD_SHA=$(git -C "$repo_root" rev-parse HEAD)
   echo "Aggregate review range: ${BASE_SHA}..${HEAD_SHA} (repo_root=$repo_root)"
   

   ${BASE_SHA}..${HEAD_SHA} are content-addressed SHAs: the range resolves to the SAME diff from the main checkout OR any worktree of this repo (one shared object store). So passing the explicit range to zuvo:review is worktree-portable — a CWD reset to the main checkout does NOT make review diff the wrong branch. That is why worktree isolation is never a reason to skip this gate (see step 4). If the range is empty (git -C "$repo_root" log "${BASE_SHA}..${HEAD_SHA}" --oneline returns nothing), emit [GATE: aggregate-review] NO-OP (empty range) and proceed to Session State Close.

2. Dispatch zuvo:review on the full plan range — default (FIX-AUTO) mode.

   Skill(skill="zuvo:review", args="${BASE_SHA}..${HEAD_SHA}")
   

   Tier auto-selection in review will land on TIER 3 — a 10–20 task plan clears the >500 lines / 15+ files threshold trivially. Do NOT pass --quick, --report-only, or any narrowing flag; the whole point is the deep cross-task pass that also applies its localized fixes. Default FIX-AUTO means review fixes MUST-FIX + localized/high-confidence RECOMMENDED in-loop (review's own post-fix gate — verify + adversarial re-validation — guards against over-correction) and defers only NIT + multi-file structural-refactor to backlog. This is deliberate: per-task gates structurally cannot see cross-task findings, so this phase is where they get found AND fixed — which makes a separate manual /zuvo:review after execute redundant rather than mandatory. (Prior behavior passed --report-only, which SURFACED localized RECOMMENDED but applied nothing — forcing the user to re-run review in fix mode to apply the exact fixes review had already identified. That second pass is the friction this removes; it also contradicted the review skill's own "localized RECOMMENDED → fix in-loop, never silently backlog" rule.)

   NO-SUBSTITUTION (HARD — closes the "I'll do a lighter pass instead" drift). Step 2 is the literal Skill(skill="zuvo:review", …) dispatch and NOTHING ELSE may stand in for it. Specifically forbidden as a substitute for the review-skill dispatch:

   • a single Agent/Explore "focused integration pass",
   • an inline lead-authored "cross-task read",
   • "the per-task adversarials already covered it, so a lighter aggregate is enough". The per-task adversarial (Step 7b) and this aggregate review are NOT interchangeable: adversarial sees one task's diff text; zuvo:review reads the plan + spec + the whole cross-task surface with its own sub-agent panel and FIX-AUTO loop. "4 rounds of adversarial already ran" is the exact rationalization this gate refuses — it justifies a substitute, and a substitute is not the gate. If you find yourself writing "rather than the full review skill", STOP: that sentence is the drift. The ONLY non-dispatch outcomes are the empty-range NO-OP (step 1) and the genuine dispatch-error BLOCKED (step 4) — never a self-rolled lighter pass reported as PASS.

3. Capture review verdict. When the review skill returns, extract from its output:

   • MUST-FIX count, RECOMMENDED count, NIT count
   • DEPLOYMENT RISK: <LOW|MEDIUM|HIGH> line
   • Path to the saved review artifact (memory/reviews/<date>-<feature>.md)

4. Localized findings are fixed in-loop; completion is still non-blocking. Review in FIX-AUTO applies MUST-FIX + localized/high-confidence RECOMMENDED and commits them as part of this phase — the localized fixes the user would otherwise apply by re-running review by hand are already applied, so the post-execute review is redundant by construction, not a required second pass. This phase still does NOT block status: completed: anything review could NOT auto-apply (multi-file structural-refactor, or a MUST-FIX whose fix is non-localized / needs a design decision) is surfaced with the artifact path + the standard review NEXT STEPS menu so the user decides post-summary. Record in the Final Summary both what was fixed (review's applied commit) and what remains for the user.

   The one exception: if Skill(zuvo:review) itself errors (skill genuinely missing, or the dispatch mechanism fails), emit [GATE: aggregate-review] BLOCKED (dispatch-failed: <reason>) and continue to Session State Close — do not retry, do not silently swallow. The dispatch failure is logged so it surfaces in retros.

   Worktree isolation is NOT a dispatch failure and NEVER a valid BLOCKED reason. "CWD resets to the main checkout, so zuvo:review would diff the wrong branch" is the exact dodge this gate refuses — it is solved, not deferred onto the user. The range is explicit content SHAs (step 1, computed with git -C "$repo_root") that resolve identically from any checkout of the same repo, so review diffs correctly wherever its CWD lands; if review needs to operate on the worktree tree itself, pass repo_root to it. A worktree is a path=/range argument, not a reason to bail (same rule as codesift-setup.md: "a worktree is NEVER a reason to drop analysis"). If you catch yourself writing "worktree", "isolation", or "CWD reset" as the BLOCKED reason — STOP: that sentence IS the drift. Compute the SHA range from repo_root and dispatch.

5. Emit telemetry line — with dispatch proof:

   [GATE: aggregate-review] PASS|RECOMMENDED-FOUND|MUST-FIX-FOUND must=<N> rec=<N> nit=<N> risk=<LOW|MEDIUM|HIGH> artifact=<path> via=zuvo:review report=<memory/reviews/...path>
   

   Verdict mapping: must>0 → MUST-FIX-FOUND; else rec>0 → RECOMMENDED-FOUND; else PASS. The via=zuvo:review token + the report=<path> to the review skill's own saved artifact (memory/reviews/<date>-<scope>.md, which only the review skill writes) are the proof of dispatch. A PASS without a real report= path that exists on disk is a substituted gate → it is INVALID; re-emit as [GATE: aggregate-review] BLOCKED (substituted — no zuvo:review artifact) and actually dispatch the skill. Never print via=explore/via=inline/via=adversarial — those are the substitution markers this gate forbids.

6. Carry the verdict into Final Summary. Add an ### Aggregate Review block (see Final Summary template) listing must/rec/nit counts, deployment risk, and the artifact path. The user reads ONE place to know what /zuvo:review would have said.

7. Write the content-keyed pipeline-entry artifact (REQUIRED — on success only). After the aggregate review passes, ensure a content-keyed review artifact memory/reviews/<base7>..<head7>-<slug>.md exists for the whole plan range, carrying the machine-readable range: / files: header per ../../shared/includes/review-artifact.md. Use BASE_SHA from step 1, but the range END is CODE_HEAD=$(git -C "$repo_root" rev-parse HEAD) recomputed immediately after review's last FIX-AUTO fix commit and BEFORE committing any report/backlog artifacts — step 1's HEAD_SHA predates review's fix commits (they would fall outside the artifact and re-block push), while a post-report HEAD makes the range self-referential; a later report commit must not rewrite this machine-readable range. Write range: ${BASE_SHA}..${CODE_HEAD} and list the production files the plan touched in files: (or *). This is the signal the pre-push + CI gates read (pg_range_reviewed) so the just-completed, reviewed work can be pushed without re-blocking. Write it only on success — if Phase Final-2 ended BLOCKED, write nothing, so an unreviewed plan never grants itself pipeline coverage. (The zuvo:review dispatch in step 2 already emits a memory/reviews/ report; this step guarantees that artifact carries the range:/files: header for the full plan range.)

Session State Close

Set status: completed in zuvo/context/execution-state.md. Update zuvo/plans/active-plan.md to status: completed.

Disarm the stall watchdog (per stall-recovery.md) — clean finish, so the watchdog must never auto-resume this run again:

# >>> zuvo:stall-watchdog (disarm — clean finish)
_HB="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)/.zuvo/context/execute.heartbeat"
[ -f "$_HB" ] && { sed -i.bak 's/^status:.*/status: done/' "$_HB" 2>/dev/null && rm -f "$_HB.bak"; } || true
# <<< zuvo:stall-watchdog

Then, if a watchdog cron was armed (Claude Code), read cron_id: from the heartbeat and CronDelete it — and as belt-and-suspenders, CronList → CronDelete any job whose prompt contains [zuvo-watchdog skill=execute project=…]. Writing status: done means even a missed CronDelete self-cleans: the next cron fire reads DONE and deletes itself.

The files remain on disk — they serve as a record of what was done. zuvo:execute will detect status: completed on next run and start fresh rather than attempting to resume.

Final Summary

Print a completion report:

## Execution Complete

**Plan:** [plan document path]
**Tasks:** N completed, M skipped, K blocked
**Adversarial coverage:** X / N tasks
**Mode shifts:** [none | Task N -> single-agent (reason)]

### Task Results
| # | Task | Status | CQ Score | Q Score | Notes |
|---|------|--------|----------|---------|-------|
| 1 | [name] | COMPLETED | 26/29 | 17/19 | — |
| 2 | [name] | COMPLETED | 27/29 | 16/19 | Concern: [brief] |
| 3 | [name] | SKIPPED | — | — | Blocker: [brief] |

### Files Changed
[list all files created, modified, or deleted across all tasks]

### Aggregate Review
[from Phase Final-2 — copy the [GATE: aggregate-review] telemetry verbatim:
 must=N rec=N nit=N risk=LOW|MEDIUM|HIGH artifact=memory/reviews/<date>-<feature>.md
 If MUST-FIX-FOUND or RECOMMENDED-FOUND, also print the review's NEXT STEPS line verbatim
 (`fix` | `auto-fix` | `skip`) so the user can act without re-opening the artifact.
 If SKIPPED, print `aggregate-review: SKIPPED (--skip-final-review)`.
 If BLOCKED, print `aggregate-review: BLOCKED (<reason>) — run /zuvo:review manually before merge.`]

### Backlog Items Added
[list any new items persisted to backlog during execution]

### Documentation
[per documentation-mandate.md — list every doc file created/updated (path + one-line what
 changed: README section, docs/<feature>.md, API ref, CHANGELOG entry, runbook, .env.example),
 or the explicit `[DOC: N/A — <reason>]` line. A multi-task plan with no docs and no declared
 N/A is INCOMPLETE.]

### Post-Cap Dispositions
[MORNING-REVIEW CONTRACT — list every `[POST-CAP: FIXED|SPEC-AMENDED|DEFERRED]` the run made
 after a review loop hit its 3-iteration cap. This is what the agent decided FOR you instead
 of waking you. One line each: task, what the reviewer blocked on, what the agent did, and
 (for SPEC-AMENDED) the old→new contract. If none fired, write "none — no review loop hit its cap".]

### Verification Evidence
[task -> command(s) -> exit code(s)]

Knowledge Curation

After all tasks complete, run the knowledge curation protocol from knowledge-curate.md. Reflect on the full execution — all tasks, all reviewer findings, all NEEDS_CONTEXT requests, all BLOCKED resolutions.

WORK_TYPE = "implementation"
CALLER = "zuvo:execute"
REFERENCE = <git SHA of the last commit>

The curate step runs regardless of how many tasks completed. Even a partially completed execution may yield learnings.

Follow-up ideas (optional — ZERO ceremony)

If genuinely new IDEAS surfaced this session — feature possibilities, "we could also X", better approaches for later — append ONE line each to memory/ideas.md at the MAIN checkout root (worktree-safe resolution per backlog-protocol.md; create if missing): - [YYYY-MM-DD] [execute] <idea> — <one-line context>. Ideas only: debt/findings go to backlog, not here. If nothing surfaced, skip silently — no marker, no gate, no telemetry. This file is read by knowledge-prime so future sessions see it.

Backlog Persistence

Persist all findings to the backlog using the backlog protocol (shared/includes/backlog-protocol.md):

• Quality reviewer findings that were accepted but not fixed (user chose "accept as-is")
• Implementer concerns classified as scope concerns
• Adversarial WARNING / INFO findings that were intentionally deferred
• Any issues surfaced to the user that were deferred

For each finding:

1. Compute fingerprint: file|rule-id|signature
2. Check for duplicates in existing backlog
3. Route by confidence (0-25 discard, 26-50 backlog only, 51+ report and backlog)

Documentation (REQUIRED — no silent skip)

Follow documentation-mandate.md. A multi-task plan landing with zero docs is a defect. Decide the doc target(s) by what actually changed across the whole plan (new feature → README/docs/<feature>.md + CHANGELOG; new/changed API or contract → API reference + CHANGELOG; new subsystem → architecture/onboarding note; behavior/flag/env/migration → runbook + .env.example; bugfix-only → CHANGELOG). For a substantial feature, dispatch Skill(skill="zuvo:docs", args="update <target>") or Skill(skill="zuvo:release-docs") (diff-driven) — they read the real diff. Write from the landed code, not from intent.

The ONLY valid no-docs path is an explicit [DOC: N/A — internal-only, no behavior/API/contract/config change]. A bare skip is forbidden. Record what was documented (paths) for the Final Summary ### Documentation section.

Retrospective (REQUIRED — no opt-out)

Follow the retrospective protocol from retrospective.md. Gate check -> structured questions -> TSV emit -> markdown append.

The "trivial session" opt-out is removed. Every execute run produces a retro entry. If the run truly was uneventful, the entry is brief (one Friction line of none observed (single-task, all green)) but must still exist. The 92% retro skip rate observed in 2026-Q1 left the pipeline blind to its own failure modes — every commit-without-retro is a defect we cannot learn from. No more.

Worktree Suggestion

If the current working directory is inside a git worktree (check git worktree list), suggest:

"Execution is complete. You are working in a worktree. Run zuvo:worktree to finish — merge, push as PR, keep, or discard."

Completion Gate Check

Before printing the final summary, verify every item. Unfinished items = pipeline incomplete.

COMPLETION GATE CHECK (per task):
[ ] Spec reviewer ran (or [GATE: spec-compliance] marker printed)
[ ] Quality reviewer ran with PER-FILE scores (or [GATE: cq-critical] marker — aggregate scores forbidden)
[ ] Adversarial review ran
[ ] Acceptance proof ran for each AC the task claims (or [GATE: acceptance-verified] with artifact paths)
[ ] execution-state.md rewritten immediately after commit (not batched)

COMPLETION GATE CHECK (final):
[ ] Whole-feature Smoke Proofs ran (or [GATE: smoke-verified] / explicit "Not applicable" with justification)
[ ] End-of-plan aggregate review ran (or [GATE: aggregate-review] PASS|RECOMMENDED-FOUND|MUST-FIX-FOUND|SKIPPED|NO-OP|BLOCKED — never silently omitted)
[ ] Content-keyed artifact memory/reviews/<base7>..<head7>-<slug>.md written with range:/files: header for the plan range (on success only — pipeline-entry signal read by pre-push/CI gates)
[ ] Aggregate review was the REAL `Skill(zuvo:review)` dispatch — `[GATE: aggregate-review]` PASS/FOUND carries `via=zuvo:review` + a `report=<memory/reviews/...>` path that EXISTS on disk. A PASS via Explore/inline/adversarial substitute, or with no review artifact, is INVALID → re-run as the real dispatch (see Phase Final-2 NO-SUBSTITUTION)
[ ] If `[GATE: aggregate-review] BLOCKED`: the reason is a GENUINE skill-missing/dispatch error — NOT "worktree"/"CWD reset"/"isolation" (those are solved with `git -C $repo_root` + the explicit content-SHA range and must be dispatched, never punted to the user)
[ ] Final summary table printed with all tasks AND all smoke proofs AND the Aggregate Review block
[ ] Backlog persistence ran for deferred findings
[ ] Knowledge curation ran
[ ] Documentation created/updated for the landed change (per documentation-mandate.md) — or explicit [DOC: N/A — <reason>]; a bare skip is INCOMPLETE
[ ] Retrospective bash appends EXECUTED (retros.log + retros.md) — no "trivial session" opt-out, printing markdown is not enough
[ ] append-runlog wrapper invoked and exited 0
[ ] Logs evidence block printed with real `tail` output

Phase order is non-negotiable. Retro append → log append → final Run: block. Past failure mode (e.g. uptime 2026-05-09): agent prints final summary + Run: line in chat, never executes the bash, all logs stay empty.

Append run line via wrapper (REQUIRED)

# Field 1 is machine-stamped by the wrapper (date -u) — do NOT hand-type a
# timestamp. `printf '%b\n'` (never echo -e) expands the literal \t separators
# portably; the wrapper strips any stray Run:/-e prefix, rejects a future date,
# and refuses a non-13-field row.
RUN_LINE="<DATE>\texecute\t<project>\t<CQ>\t<Q>\t<VERDICT>\t<TASKS>\t<N>-tasks\t<NOTES>\t<BRANCH>\t<SHA7>\t<INCLUDES>\t<TIER>"
printf '%b\n' "$RUN_LINE" | ~/.zuvo/append-runlog

Expected stdout: OK: appended to runs.log (retro verified for execute on <project>). If RETRO_REQUIRED exit 2 — execute the retro bash from retrospective.md first, never bypass with ZUVO_SKIP_RETRO_GATE=1.

Final Run: block (only after wrapper succeeds)

Run: <ISO-8601-Z>	execute	<project>	<CQ>	<Q>	<VERDICT>	<TASKS>	<N>-tasks	<NOTES>	<BRANCH>	<SHA7>	<INCLUDES>	<TIER>
Logs: retros.log=ok retros.md=ok(<count> entries) runs.log=ok

If any append failed: EXECUTE INCOMPLETE, not a normal Run: line.

---

Mandatory Protocols

These protocols apply to every agent dispatched during execution. They are non-negotiable.

Verification Protocol

From shared/includes/verification-protocol.md: no completion claim without fresh evidence. The implementer must run tests and provide exit codes. The reviewers must read actual code, not trust reports.

TDD Protocol

From shared/includes/tdd-protocol.md: no production code without a failing test first. RED-GREEN-REFACTOR. The implementer follows the plan's TDD steps in order.

Quality Gates

From shared/includes/quality-gates.md:

• CQ1-CQ29 on production code (critical gates: CQ3, CQ4, CQ5, CQ6, CQ8, CQ14 + conditional: CQ16, CQ19-CQ24, CQ28)
• Q1-Q19 on test code (critical gates: Q7, Q11, Q13, Q15, Q17)
• Any critical gate = 0 -> FAIL, regardless of total score

Backlog Protocol

From shared/includes/backlog-protocol.md: every finding with confidence above 25% is persisted. Zero silent discards.

---

Retry Limits Summary

Situation	Max retries	After limit
NEEDS_CONTEXT re-dispatch	2	Escalate to user
Spec review loop	3 iterations	Post-cap disposition: fix / amend-spec / defer — continue (no pause)
Quality review loop	3 iterations	Post-cap disposition: fix / defer-false-positive — continue (no pause)
Adversarial review loop	3 (same CRITICAL relooped) / 6 (new distinct CRITICAL each iteration)	Mark BLOCKED, surface findings
Agent crash/timeout	1 retry	Mark BLOCKED, continue rest of plan

---

What You Must NOT Do

• In multi-agent mode: do not write code yourself. Dispatch agents for all implementation work. In single-agent mode: write code yourself but follow the checkpoint protocol (Execution Modes section).
• Do not silently switch from multi-agent to single-agent. Announce the mode switch and keep every gate.
• Do not skip spec review or quality review. Both are mandatory for every task.
• Do not skip adversarial review. It is mandatory for every task.
• Do not silently skip BLOCKED tasks — record them in the Final Summary with the blocker and resume command (but keep processing the rest of the plan).
• Do not proceed past a critical gate failure by pretending it passed. Apply the Post-Cap Disposition (fix / amend-spec / defer-with-default) and record it — do not fabricate a pass.
• Do auto-resolve reviewer↔implementer disagreements after the 3-cycle cap via the Post-Cap Autonomous Disposition (no-pause-protocol.md) — apply the determinate fix, amend a wrong spec, or take the safest documented default and continue. Do NOT stop and ask fix / accept / abort mid-run; the user reviews dispositions in the Final Summary, not at 2am.
• Do not re-order tasks in a way that violates dependency constraints.
• Do not mark a task as completed if its tests have not been verified as passing.
• Do not start the next task until execution-state.md has been successfully rewritten on disk.